CHART OF THE DAY: Useless Sleep

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10/21/14 08:07 AM EDT

Useless Sleep

“There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.”

-Simone De Beauvoir

I’m not known as a big sleeper. I’ve been krolled (not to be confused with being trolled on Twitter) a few times during the due diligence process for different ownership/partnership stakes and positions, and “irregular hours” always comes up as a “flag.”

Back when we started the firm in 2008, that’s why I called this morning rant the Early Look. And so my amateur writing career began… with the promise of only one repeatable competitive differentiator: getting up early and writing to you at the top of the risk management morning.

Last night we hosted a small group dinner in NYC to talk about how everything has “bottomed.” While the feedback (and fear) is that most don’t want to “miss” the next move up, I couldn’t sleep last night thinking that fear itself might just be the biggest #Bubble of them all.

Back to the Global Macro Grind…

When someone uses the word “fear”, it tends to have negative connotations. And, to be clear, I am thinking very negative things could happen if I am correct in calibrating that many got longer of #bubble exposures on the equity and junk bond market’s most recent bounce.

Sure, they may have sold short indices and overpaid for volatility, protection, etc. in the heat of last week’s melt-down, but they A) didn’t sell all of their crashing small/mid cap equity exposures and/or B) their junkie “high-yield” positions either.

In risk management speak, in bear markets we call this cardinal sin “selling what you can, not what you should”… and while my calibration might be wrong, I can’t see that in the market’s futures/options positioning (which is getting longer of beta, not shorter).

To review where some of the hardest core #Bubbles are in this interconnected world:

Central Planning

Carry Trading

Complacency

Small Cap Illiquidity

Fixed Income Junk

Hedge Fund Levered Long Beta

To me, a lot of this is one and the same thing. And it really starts with the 1st#Bubble (Central Planning) because that’s what drove macro markets to inheriting the mother of all interconnected risks (see exhibit 52 in the Q4 Macro Themes Deck) – the #Bubble in Spread Risk (see Chart of The Day):

All-time Low in Spreads (Investment Grade over Treasuries)

All-time low in Volatility (across asset classes)

All-time high in Debt Outstanding (globally)

What’s fascinating about this 3D risk picture is that almost every equity only PM we meet with agrees with it much more adamantly than any of my US stock market centric #bubble charts (like the one that has Russell 2000 at 55x earnings with low liquidity).

There’s obviously confirmation bias in that, but reality is that unless you think it’s different this time (almost every “the bottom is in” thesis has something to do with markets not being able to go down anymore), this is how The Waterfall of Spread Risk works:

Global Growth continues to surprise to the downside

US Long Bond Yields continue to fall in kind (mean reverting to what Japan and Germany’s did)

Both volatility and spread risk continue to break-out from their all-time lows

You see, the core differentiator in our call this year has always been fundamental – that growth slows and starts to get priced into expectations.

“So”, instead of living in fear of your own performance and/or what the “other funds” did last week when the Russell was -15% from its July #bubble high, why don’t I hear most people focusing on what was causal to the gap down in bond yields and equity markets to begin with?

You can lose sleep over what everyone else is doing, or you can focus on what you need to do to get the fundamental research right. And this early riser humbly submits that if you get the rate of change in growth and inflation right, you’re going to get both bond yields and your exposures right.

Our immediate-term Global Macro Risk Ranges are now:

UST 10yr Yield 2.09-2.25%

SPX 1

RUT 1040-1106 VIX 15.15-28.82

WTI Oil 79.97-83.95

Gold 1

Best of luck out there,

KM

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10/21/14 08:01 AM EDT

Exorbitant Privilege

This note was originally published
at 8am on October 07, 2014 for Hedgeye subscribers.

“The Dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.”

-U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally, 1971

When charged with getting up early and working against the clock to produce a daily strategy missive, sometimes you throw up some duds. You are, however, afforded the “exorbitant privilege” of serving as creator, curator and editor-in-chief of your own content.

With KM in London, alongside a general dearth of domestic economic data this week, we’re afforded the opportunity to hit the Macro rand() button and survey some broader, top-down topography.

So, on with the binary dud or stud content creation....

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the French Finance Minister in 1960, coined the term “exorbitant privilege” in rebuking the U.S.’s ability to issue external liabilities (ie cheap treasury debt) at a discount to the global cost of capital while earning higher returns on foreign equity, debt and FDI holdings.

Simply, as venture capitalist to the world and sole beneficiary of dollar hegemony – we get to borrow low and lend high.

…and borrow we have.

Over the last 34 years, on our way to becoming the biggest debtor nation in history, we have borrowed some $10.4T, with an average annual deficit-to-GDP ratio of ~3.2%.

What does that mean exactly and what are the consequences of such a massive imbalance in the global flow of goods, services, income & assets?

In short, it means we’ve borrowed and/or sold accumulated wealth to finance consumption in excess of income – with the tailwinds of globalization and financial integration helping us do so in unprecedented magnitude.

To review:

The global flow of commerce and capital can appear complex and convoluted but, in large part, the same dynamics and constraints that drive spending and borrowing decisions for the individual or household apply to sovereigns as well.

If national expenditures (C+I+G) are greater than domestic output (GDP) – if spending is greater than income – that difference is financed by borrowing from abroad; either by direct issuance of debt or via dissaving and the selling of domestic and external assets.

A creditor/surplus country whose expenditures are less than its income lends that difference to a deficit country by buying the deficit country’s debt/assets. From the opposite perspective, a debtor/deficit nation finances consumption expenditures in excess of income by selling assets or issuing debt to a surplus nation.

Such trade balances have important implications for national wealth because a country’s net investment position with the rest of the world (ie. how many foreign assets a country owns vs. foreign claims on domestic assets) defines a nation’s external wealth – and, in the (very) long run, it’s a country’s level of wealth plus its level of income (ie. GDP) that determines its long-run capacity to spend.

Since ~1980, the U.S. has incurred a persistently negative trade balance, financing current consumption by dissaving and borrowing from abroad.

Interestingly, however, U.S. external wealth has declined disproportionately less than the cumulative trade deficit. Indeed, we have been a net exporter of assets to the tune of ~$600B per year via the trade deficit but our external net wealth has declined only modestly, even risen significantly in many years.

How can a country increase its net wealth? Again, the same as an individual or household:

Save more (ie. the trade balance: reduce/reverse the trade deficit)

Be the beneficiary of gifts of assets (ie. the capital account: not really a factor for the U.S.)

Benefit from capital gains (ie. high positive ROI on external assets)

For a country that is a net debtor, the singular path to earning positive net interest income is by receiving a higher rate of interest on its external assets than it pays on its liabilities.

The US exports a significant amount of capital to foreign markets: EM and developing market risk premiums are higher but, longer-term, returns are better also. For the U.S., the benefit comes in the form of higher relative capital gains

EM & Developing Countries borrow high and lend low: This is an oversimplification but it's broadly true. Cost of capital for EM and developing countries is comparably higher and, to the extent a higher proportion of investment capital flows to US/DM treasury debt (vs equity or FDI), the returns are comparably lower.

How do the above factors impact net external wealth and play to the benefit of the U.S.?

Here’s the textbook equation for change in external wealth over a given period:

It’s the two terms on the far right side of the equation that have provided an incremental net benefit to the United States and have underpinned her Exorbitant Privilege for nearly a century.

The data is somewhat mixed and open to debate, but the BEA estimates the US has been the beneficiary (due to the confluence of factors highlighted above) of a positive interest rate differential of ~1.5% and a positive capital gain differential of ~2% for the last 3 decades.

In other words, Exorbitant Privilege has provided an ~3.5% offset to the trade deficit.

In recent years, global central bank policies aimed a lowering interest rates and inflating financial asset prices have served to further perpetuate that privilege.

Indeed, recall the circular flow of QE mechanics:

The Treasury issues debt --> the Fed buys the debt --> the Treasury pays the Fed interest --> the Fed gives the money back to the Treasury.

In addition to directly lowering the cost of U.S. external liabilities via large scale asset purchases, remittances from the Fed – at ~$80B/yr and equivalent to ~35% of federal net interest expense – takes the effective cost of capital for the Treasury further towards 0%.

#FreeLunch…for now

Since 1450 the mean length of dominance for a particular global reserve currency = 94 years.

The current duration of reign in US dollar supremacy? Yup…94 years.

$USD correlation risk in markets currently is acute and for the investible future, the dollar will remain the Fx alpha male.

But alongside the fledgling internationalization of the renminbi and accumulating bilateral swap agreements across the BRIC and Asian axes, the anti-dollar coalition is ascendant.

The dollar is our currency, and the cost of cumulative excess afforded under a century of privilege will be our problem during its descendancy.

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CAT: Game Time (Earnings Preview, Revised)

Summary

Thursday’s earnings report should shift attention to 2015 expectations, with the market likely to focus on backlog and preliminary 2015 revenue guidance. While we expect management to provide a very wide guidance range for the segments, we also expect 2015 EPS to eventually come in near or below 2014 EPS. Last year's initial 2014 revenue guidance took a significant bite out of both consensus sales and EPS estimates. CAT will be giving initial 2015 guidance following a period of weakness in key energy, mining, and construction end-markets. As a result, we think there is a heightened likelihood that 2015 estimates resume their march lower in the near-term.

Key Points

Wind Changing Directions? Dealer inventory builds, a short-lived surge in coal production, and Tier 4 pre-buy activity supported 1H 2014 results, but the environment going forward looks far less supportive. Commodity prices, particularly in iron ore, oil and gas, and coal are generally much lower than 1H 2014 or 2H 2013. Dealers are expected to reduce inventories in 2H 2014 at a similar painful pace to that of 2H 2013, with guidance for drawdowns of ~$1.6 bil vs. ~$1.3 bil in 2H 2013. Construction equipment demand may also have slowed, as preannouncements from TEX and MTW suggest. It is hard to see order rates improving sequentially, pointing to either weak revenues or, more likely, further draws on the order backlog into 2015.

Expect Wide Guidance Range: While we do not know where management will place 2015 revenue guidance, we do expect that guidance will provide plenty of flexibility. A wide guide would likely allow management to avoid another 2013-esque series of credibility damaging guidance cuts. CAT’s markets have weakened in an increasingly uncertain global economy and recent growth concerns should provide a good pretext for incorporating ‘wide-ness’ into the 2015 outlook. Of course, a wide guidance range may be interpreted as the market as ‘we don’t know, but it doesn’t look all that good’, anyway.

Energy & Transportation Exposed: Increasingly, we expect the ‘action’ to shift into the Energy & Transportation (E&T) segment. Of course, mining capital spending has declined to more normal levels, and may worsen a bit given commodity price weakness and equipment pricing trends. Over time, we would look to the credit side of CAT for incremental interesting negatives in mining equipment. With oil prices near the lows of recent years and Tier 4 Final implementation in large engine in 2015, we expect to see pressure on E&T order rates and margins.

Tier 4F Beyond Locomotives: While gas compression is likely to remain robust, the other energy end-markets may be less so into 2015. CAT does not have a Tier 4 compliant US locomotive offering, and does not expect one, last we checked, until about 2017. Prime power gensets frequently go into off-grid applications like mining, oil production, rail, coal, steel, and agriculture. Reciprocating engine sales to other oil and gas applications, like rig engines, may also soften amid lower energy prices.

Source: Hedgeye Call with Jeff Leigh, Former Head of Finning Power Systems April 11, 2014

Our Expectations: We think a more reasonable 2015 EPS and E&T revenue expectation is at or below 2014. We expect an E&T downshift leading the decline on a softer energy market and Tier 4 Final implementation. We also see pricing in mining equipment continuing to weaken, with credit developing into a more relevant factor. Construction Industries may continue to perform on the top line, but faces record margin compares in 1H 2015. That doesn’t sound to us like a recipe for the 5% ($55.1 bil to $57.8 bil) sales growth or 13% 2015 EPS growth ($6.26 for 2014 to $7.08) implied by consensus estimates.

Where We Could Be Wrong: CAT could have a larger cost reduction program than we currently expect. Share repurchases boost EPS, and large or numerous acquisitions can impact reported sales and EPS. Significant stimulus, particularly in China, could help re-inflate commodity prices. Dealer inventory changes can also be a bit of a wild card, and may help 2015 after years of mostly destocking.

Some Questions on the Quarter and Guidance

What oil price is baked into the 2015 outlook? Crude oil prices may be down on the Saudi’s trying to disrupt U.S. shale oil, or in an effort to pressure Russia over Ukraine, or steeply lower Chinese demand, or some combination of those factors, or none of those factors. In any case, 2015 end use demand by ‘petroleum’ has a less clear outlook than it did a few months ago.

How much impact will Tier 4 Final have on E&T in 2015? Interestingly, the company took a pass on a version of this question in the last conference call, with the analyst confessing that he “should have sent it before”. Staged conference calls aside, the T4F standards matter for other high horsepower engines beyond locomotives.

Given the recent pressure in iron ore and coal, how are you managing the credit risk at CAT financial and are there any noteworthy trends? It seems widely expected now that many coal and iron ore miners will be forced to exit.

What is happening with mining equipment pricing in the market today relative to what is being recognized from backlogged orders in revenue? Last we heard, pricing was slipping at a slow rate.

How much of change in Construction Industries sales related to changes in dealer inventories (destock) vs. so-called end user demand? The company has been doing a much better job with the disclosures around dealer inventory changes. Destock may overstate end-market weakness.

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10/21/14 07:40 AM EDT

THE HEDGEYE DAILY OUTLOOK

TODAY’S S&P 500 SET-UP – October 21, 2014

As we look at today's setup for the S&P 500, the range is 105 points or 3.89% downside to 1830 and 1.63% upside to 1935.

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